


the tiniest confession

by Anonymous



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, itaru is incredibly uncool here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 12:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13570383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Later, Itaru will blame it on the lack of sleep. "Adults have a lot to worry about," he tells Tsuzuru, pointedly not looking at him. "I had my reasons."





	the tiniest confession

**Author's Note:**

> hi bao

When Itaru wakes up, Tsuzuru's not there.

"That's so cruel," Itaru says aloud, rolling over and falling off the sofa. He'd been grinding a guild event, he remembers, rubbing his bruised hip, while Tsuzuru had been bagging rubbish around the room. Then Itaru had stood to celebrate a particularly exciting victory, stubbed his toe on a table leg, and sulked on the sofa for some time. Wake me up when it's time for dinner, he'd told Tsuzuru.

Granted, he hadn't heard Tsuzuru actually agree, but Tsuzuru often does these things even if he proclaims he won't anyway, so Itaru hadn't been too concerned. Now his stomach is grumbling, and it looks like he's missed dinner.

"Cup ramen for me tonight, then," he decides, dragging himself to the door. As he pauses to look mournfully at his empty room once more, something catches his eye.

Tsuzuru has left his jacket on the floor.

This, in and of itself, isn't particularly concerning. Itaru leaves his clothes on the floor all the time, shucking off his suit and tie and pants as soon as he steps through the door on particularly tiring nights. It's hard to imagine Tsuzuru leaving his jacket behind like this, though, especially since he's always wary of Itaru spilling coke and potato chip crumbs on his stuff if he looks away for even a second.

Itaru's phone vibrates ominously. A cascade of colour spills across the screen; if he squints through the light, he can make out the tiny icon of _Santiago Dandelions_ alerting him that his SP is full. He has to take a moment to remember which of the sixteen plant-raising games _S-Dan_ is, slowly recalling some strange plot about boys who love gardening turning into dandelions to learn more about their favourite flowers. Not a bad game, actually. He finds the yawning animations particularly cute.

Gardening makes him think of Tsumugi, and the Tsumugi in Itaru’s mind today is drunk. _Remember that time we relived the same day over and over again,_ he giggles to Itaru, conjured up from the memory of an ‘adults only’ drinking night some weeks ago. _I wonder what the other mysteries of MANKAI are?_

 _Here’s one_ , thinks Itaru, scooping up Tsuzuru’s abandoned jacket. He can’t imagine at all why Tsuzuru would leave this precious possession in Itaru’s soup-stained hands, unless Tsuzuru himself has been magically transformed into a dandelion or something through the mystical powers of their dormitory. Tsumugi’s scattered laughter echoes in his ears. All of a sudden, the thought worries him. He’s read about it in light novels before – protagonists getting swept away into strange lands. He’s even considered commissioning Tsuzuru to write something like that about him – a grand world where Itaru Chigasaki is a mysterious newcomer capable of felling any monster with a single punch. Tsuzuru’s no protagonist, but mistakes happen sometimes. Itaru himself had been mere metres away.

His phone vibrates again, loud and insistent. With a moderate level of trepidation, Itaru unlocks his phone and stares at all his apps. For a fleeting moment, he almost regrets having eight full screens of downloaded apps. “Best to start from the beginning,” he decides, opening _Santiago Dandelions_. It might just be his imagination, but the voice at the welcome screen sounds a little higher than he remembers it. Tsuzuru’s voice might sound like that, thrown through a hundred different sound processors and filtered through Itaru’s tiny phone speakers. Itaru prefers the way Tsuzuru sounds in person – rich and exciting, with scandalised outbursts and tired retorts. “The classic _tsukkomi_ voice,” Itaru says, snorting.

The silence that greets him feels lonelier than he’d expected.

The game roars to life with the chatter of anthropomorphic flowers and electronic background melodies. Itaru taps around for a while, cruising around the flower villages and speaking to the salesflowers. It soon becomes clear to him that he had sorely underestimated Tsuzuru’s utter mediocrity. Half the characters he talks to have brown hair, and he runs into at least ten Villager Cs shopping his way through a single town. Any one of them could be Tsuzuru – yet something in Itaru’s gut tells him that none of them are. It’s hard to be discerning when the game only lets him ask generic questions like _[How are you growing today?]_ or _[I love the sun! Don’t you?]_ but none of their answers feel real to him; nobody smiles in the soft, reluctant manner Tsuzuru does or stands with their shoulders slumped like they’re sick and tired of how useless he is – and Itaru would be able to tell, okay, even though they’re stylised cartoon images.

There’s a white dot near the top-left corner of his screen that won’t change colour no matter which tab he opens. _What a joke_ , Itaru thinks. Even his phone screen is bowing out on him now; he’ll have to get it fixed, which means a solid hour without access to all his virtual friends. He’s not sure he’ll survive the separation.

 _It’s a single dot_ , the Tsuzuru in his mind says, sounding strangely inadequate. _How important can it be?_ Itaru likes to think he has a fairly good handle on how Tsuzuru is, but even this replica is hollow. A single dot marring the face of his favourite character as they tumble into his cards list? Unforgivable.

The white dot shines up at him, miniscule yet defiant, one in two million seven hundred thousand others, and still managing to single-handedly ruin his enjoyment of the game.

For some reason, he’s touched.

Tsuzuru never calls himself special; he blushes at Kazunari’s enthusiastic praise and ducks his head when Omi tattles about the things that happen at university. But he writes plays that only he can write, plays that make Itaru’s chest burn. Plays that make him feel alive in a way he’s never felt before.

Even if Tsuzuru really is trapped in Itaru’s phone, compressed into a single, expressionless pixel, Itaru will find him. He’s a useless adult, but he gets things done when he has to – and losing Tsuzuru is something Itaru will fight legions to avoid.

How do people undo curses? Itaru doesn’t have any magical equipment – apart from his apple cards and prized game consoles, but those are for a different purpose. When in doubt, it’s best to fall back to the tied-and-tested. If only because he’s recently started playing a game whose heroines are based on fairy tale princesses, Itaru is familiar with the classic curse-breaking method.

Hesitating, he leans in and presses his lips to the shining dot. "I’m sorry," he whispers, surprised at how feeble his voice sounds. "Come back, Tsuzuru?"

The dot flashes, melting back into the surrounding scenery. For one single, brilliant moment, Itaru truly believes he has succeeded. Then the chatter of the game resumes, the villagers milling about as if nothing has happened, and Itaru’s room remains empty.

Against his will, his eyes start to burn.

“Uh, I don’t really want to know.”

Itaru whips around at the voice. There in the doorway, looking mildly disgusted, is Tsuzuru, as real as Itaru has ever known him. “You’re back,” Itaru yelps, staring at his phone screen in amazement. He’s tempted to kiss it again. He does kiss it again, actually. You can never show your magical game portals too much appreciation.

“I told you I was going to call you for dinner,” Tsuzuru says. “If I’d known I was going to interrupt you in the middle of your uh, bonding time, I’d have left you hungry.”

“Eh?” Itaru checks the time. It’s only seven thirty. “But…” He trails off, offering up the jacket that had gotten him so flustered. “But you left your jacket behind.”

Tsuzuru wrinkles his nose. “Why would I leave my jacket with _you_? You’d get Coke on it. Also, that’s not my jacket.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it really isn’t.”

Offended, Itaru looks down at the jacket. Tsuzuru is correct. The jacket is actually one Itaru bought recently; he’d worn it once and then forgotten all about it.

“No, but…”

Tsuzuru shakes his head, dumbfounded. “I’m not going to ask, but if you don’t want to miss dinner, you’d better hurry up.”

“Is it curry again?” asks Itaru, sinking to the ground in a daze. “I don’t want to eat curry tonight.”

“Suck it up,” Tsuzuru retorts. “I don’t want to clean up your room, either.”

“Well, why do you do it, then?” Itaru is working himself up to a good-going sulk. He hopes Tsuzuru insults him, so he can insult Tsuzuru back.

To his surprise, Tsuzuru looks away. “Hurry up,” he says finally. “Let’s not keep everyone waiting.”

Itaru reaches out. Tsuzuru’s waist is pretty normal, all things considered. It’s solid and small enough for Itaru to cling on comfortably. Most importantly, it’s real. “Hey,” says Itaru, “I’m kind of tired still. Carry me down?”

Tsuzuru takes his hands and gently untangles them. Itaru, as just proven, definitely has an overactive imagination, but he suspects Tsuzuru holds on longer than necessary. “Nah,” Tsuzuru says, dumping Itaru’s hands. “Don’t wanna.”

He walks through the door and out of sight. “That’s so cruel,” Itaru says again, thinking of all the trouble he’d just suffered for Tsuzuru’s sake. Then he thinks of Tsuzuru’s stomach tightening under his hold, the flustered quiver in his rejection.

 _A win’s a win,_ Itaru decides, shrugging, and hauls himself down to dinner.


End file.
